Photovoltaic (PV) panels, herein also referred to as PV units or PV modules, have long been argued to be a very attractive solution for future clean energy resource. The efficiency of a photovoltaic system is varied in different operating conditions by time-dependent effects. The efficiency of today's solar panel is about 18% to 23%, however the effective efficiency of a PV system is strongly affected by varying factors such as partial shading. In rooftop applications, these problems become more eminent. In reality, variations in output powers exist between different solar cells of a PV module because of the partial shading in the module. These variations in PV cells lead to a relatively significant power loss, which apparently affect the overall efficiency. The usage of a centralized power converter for a system with a large number of modules, makes this power mismatching a crucial factor.
In state of the art research literature, only limited studies are available on the distributed power management techniques at the PV module and submodule level. Due to the power mismatch which occurs between different solar cells there is a significant power loss at the output.
Therefore, a need exists for improved methods and devices for distributed power management techniques specially at the PV submodule level.